Chased Greenies, Caught Señor Gato

It had been almost 3 weeks since my last outing. I decided I would head out to my old favorite fishing hole to see if I get some bucket-mouths. Since majority of my fishing time back in August was geared toward smallmouth, I figured it was about time to go after some greenies. 

I began hitting the edges of the spadderdock with my usual setups, a spinnerbait and a carolina rig with  a worm at the end. I missed a couple by not paying attention, you know, wiping your forehead, moving something out of the way. Yeah, those short strikes are really precious when the fishing is slow. 

It took roughly about 45 minutes before I landed my first fish. This catfish smacked my spinnerbait on the retrieval along the edge in the distance.

The 6.5 pounder came later. This one smacked my worm. I tell you what. It darted towards the spadderdock, then made a sharp turn back towards the channel. It took me about 15 minutes to land her on the light tackle. 

 The release.

The bent Gamikatsu hook.

Although, I didn't catch a largemouth, landing a decent size cat was surely fun. 

Playing Guide

There are a couple of fishing groups and forums that I am active in. One being kayakbassfishing.com and the other is the Northern Virginia Fishing group in Facebook. Once I heard KBF Northern VA anglers were planning a frogging outing, I grew excited. Then I heard they would becoming to my playground. I was even more excited.

On Saturday morning, most anglers launched earlier than I had wanted to. I believe I launched 0630. Low tide was at 0515, but I wasn't sure if they opened the gates early when there are tournaments. Anyhow, just as I was about to launch, Steve Clark arrives. He had sent me a message on Facebook asking about the creek. So, I told him, unload and I'll be waiting for you on the other side of the tracks. 

As I arrived at the entrance to the creek, I noticed all the other anglers were spread out. With storms on the forecast, I wanted to get some fishing time and get Steve hooked into some decent size bass and maybe even a snakehead. 

Steve paddles up about 20 minutes later. I told him, lets go. We are heading to the back, but first lets make a quick stop on along side the main channel.

Here is my biggest of the day. Top water action is awesome! The footage is in the video below. Check it out. 

We couldn't get others to bite, so we headed off into the creek. With Scott Wilson now joining Steve and I. I let them take lead, giving some pointers along the way. We got into some decent size bass and Steve landed his first snakehead. 

All in all it was a great outing. I got to meet some new friends. It will be there turn showing me the ropes as we target some smallies on the upper Potomac on 7-21-2013. Hopefully, I can land a nice bronze back. It will be first smallie outing of the year.

Well, here is the video. Enjoy! 

From Good to Bad--Fishing

I got an early start last Sunday morning. There was rain in the forecast, about 20 percent. Yeah, I thought, it isn't going to rain as I left the house. As I arrived my destination, the wind was minimal. Just as I launched, the wind picked up making it a little rough. I immediately made it out to the edge of the channel, tossing a Carolina rig with a stick bait at the end of the hook. I fan casted, made some pitches in the some holes, then finally landed a 14 inch bass. That would be the last one in that area, my buddy and I decided to begin heading into the creek. Since it was high tide, the spatterdocks and submerged vegetation were not an issue, we headed into the shallows in search for bass or snakeheads.

We began tossing spinnerbaits along with a Carolina rig. My buddy ended landing a snakehead in 3 feet of water off the Carolina rig with a stick bait on the end. As the rain began to fall, we began catching bass on a white spinnerbaits. Mine had a little chartreuse on the skirt, that was the only difference.

In summary, it was started a bit rough, but caught some fish. He ended the day with 8 fish to my 4.  I caught my first fish off a frog for the year. That was the good. The bad began when the rain came down, my bag, where I store my phone, was not properly sealed and on top of that, I began to fill sick out on the water. Needless to say, I had a bad week. Hopefully, my next outing is a much better one with no issues.